


Palace of the Soul Serene

by TheGeekIsShowing



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Post Reichenbach, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 18:38:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGeekIsShowing/pseuds/TheGeekIsShowing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A stranger would see a content individual unfortunately favoring one of his legs. A friend would be horrified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Palace of the Soul Serene

**Author's Note:**

> Thank so much to my darling beta Antiquated_Sorceress, She's brilliant and I'm so thankful she wants to help me write my stories. <333

 

 

_Tea does our fancy aid,_

_Repress those vapours which the head invade_

_And keeps that palace of the soul serene._

_~Edmund Waller, "Of Tea"_

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He’s in his favorite jumper and his face is freshly shaven. The limp is back, but the cane leans untouched in the back corner of his closet.The fingerprints on it have long since been erased by months of dust, its metal shine hidden by rows of newly color-coded jumpers. Sitting innocently beside it is a box of socks neatly stacked by rows according to color and size.A stranger would see a content individual unfortunately favoring one of his legs. A friend would be horrified.

The same stranger would see a face which emanated tranquility, a mask of blandness to be likened with the weak Earl Grey on the counter. Tea bag bobbing up and down, akin to a boat made of wood in the eye of a storm, swaying on steady waves whilst chaos reigns around it. He starts up a droning sort of hum.The bag is binned as he putsthe kettle on the dining table. A sigh escapes him when he sits.

He fills a white cup--the one most stained, with a crack in the porcelain scarring it much like its owner. The cacophonic humming continues as he repeats the pattern with another.  

His lips curl up at the tone of his voice, a barely there smile just as distant/detached. Some tiny part of him is amused at how cut off he is from the everyday rhythm of the world. He uses a finger to push the second cup across the table. It stops before the human skull resting there, a hideous grin frozen on the hollow features; a parody of emotion.  

“Just you and me now.” He hums, lips deforming into a tight-lipped smile. He urges the skull to drink its tea as he sips his own. When the only trace of his bland Earl Grey is the leaves littering the base of his cup, he tips the untouched cup of tea onto the skull. The windowbrings in the pale morning light. It bathes the bones; they glisten luminously in the otherwise oppressive room.

Neither tune nor smile changes as he does. The table is wet. So is the floor. He doesn’t mind.

His tune picks up as he washes the cups,so closely bordering on cheerful that for a moment it might even have been convincing. The tea and wet skull ease something inside of him, eliciting memories of tea ceremonies and yellow spray-paint cans.

A stranger would think him eccentric. A narrow-minded stranger would think him deranged. A friend would weep, awash with the pain the man himself is convinced he no longer feels. The hurt radiating off of him will sear inescapably into their bones, leaving them haunted for a long time ahead.

It’s been two months since the Great Fall; Dr. John Watson is already a broken man.

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> Hoped you liked it, please leave kudos or a comment if you did so I know. Thanks for reading! <3


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